College Admissions Scandal

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Opening up a college decision letter is one of the hardest parts of the college admission process. People do whatever they can to give them an advantage or to at least one up their fellow applicants. Some people go through serious extremes to get their kid in a university. It’s not even their kid that is doing the illegal actions, it is the parent. Parents go as far as lying and cheating for the good of their own kid.

The news that several celebrities helped cheat their kids’ way into eight prestigious universities shocked the everyone across the United States. And they owe all their success to this one guy, William ‘Rick’ Singer.

Singer is the CEO and Master Coach of the world’s largest private Life Coaching and College Counseling Company, called The Key. He has been profiting in education for decades. So this wasn’t new to him and he knew that if he got caught, that could be the end of him. Singer and his company The Key helped wealthy students score better on the ACT or SAT by helping them cheat on it. Singer was also accused of bribing college coaches to say a prospective student should be accepted because they were ‘recruited’ on their sports team. Obviously, the student was not looking to compete in collegiate sports.

Singer did end up pleading guilty and admitted that the allegations were very much true, Singer mentioned during his hearing. “I created a side door that would guarantee families would get in.” During all of this, Singer was paid almost $25 million by the parents of prospective students. A prosecutor did comment that Singer told a parent that he wanted to help the most privileged. He is only out to help the wealthiest families all over the world. Because of what Singer has done, it cost less fortunate students an acceptance to higher education. The U.S. Attorney for the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, Andrew Lelling, made a very valid argument, “For every student admitted through fraud, an honest, genuinely talented student was rejected.”

In conclusion, Singer, who is 58 years old, could spend as many as 65 years in prison and a $1.25 million fine. He is scheduled to be sentenced on June 19th of this year. The colleges that were involved, include: Yale, Stanford, University of Southern California, Wake Forest and Georgetown. There were dozens of wealthy families that participated in this scandal: Yale’s women’s soccer coach, Rudolph Meredith, our favorite Aunt Becky from Full House, Lori Loughlin, Felicity Huffman, and many more actresses, CEOs and college athletic officials.

This right here, was known as the largest college admission scandal ever pursued and destroyed by the Department of Justice.